House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said Friday that he’s working to forgive the man that shot him in 2017 with the advice of a pastor whose church was burned down and forgave the alleged arsonist.

Scalise, a Catholic, met the pastor at a reception last week with pastors from three predominantly black churches that were burned down in his district.

“We met at one of them, the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, one of the churches, and it was a warm gathering,” the congressman told reporters on Friday, according to The Hill.
“The minister of the church that we were holding the reception at talked about how he's already forgiven the arsonist. And I talked to him about that afterward, because I still have to address forgiveness for, you know, the shooting two years ago. And so it was very good to talk to him and kind of get an understanding of how he got to that point.”

He added that he found the pastor’s remarks about his reasons for forgiving the alleged arsonist “powerful,” and inspiring.

“I've never internally fully forgiven the shooter from the baseball shooting, and it's something I struggle with as a Catholic. I mean, part of my faith is forgiveness and I’m, I'm working to get there, and it was actually helpful to talk to him afterward about it,” Scalise said. “And we agreed to talk some more — I asked him if we could talk some more and he wants to so we're going to do that.”

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said Friday that he's working to forgive the man that shot him in 2017 with the advice of a pastor whose church was burned down and forgave the alleged arsonist.Scalise, a Catholic, met the pastor at a reception last week with...

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